For six days prior to the opening of this exhibition, Mark Braunias ensconced himself within the gallery walls. Armed with a staple gun, tape and an impressive array of paintings (some complete, others still in progress), he playfully positioned his works in and around the available spaces. Then, from the edges of a large triptych, painted figures and telescopic shapes began to emerge onto the white wall itself…

SPACEDOUT

The following is an artist's statement by Mark Braunias about the background to his exhibition SPACEDOUT:

"This exhibition continues to evolve ideas and processes from a project concerning SPACE, begun in San Francisco on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Headlands Artist Residency from June - Sept 2011.

My project title ‘M(b) Theory’ was a loosely based riff on the notion of super-string theory (later adjusted to M theory) concerning the concept of parallel universes. I applied my popular science understanding of physics to a parallel world of the imagination…. essentially the differing ‘worlds’ which exist inside every individual’s own head. Using the fundamental characteristics of science and the make-up of all matter, I subverted stored knowledge to act as metaphor. The nature of existence within popular culture and beyond is re-routed. Orbits and gravitational tension are applied to the psychology of day-to-day habits and fantasy either in the home, the workplace or in front of a digital screen etc. The depiction of space itself is a recurring theme throughout, where images are condensed, exploded or distanced apart. Every single drawn image concerns itself with pictorial spatial tension and the interplay of negative and positive space.

The typed drawings presented here were initially started in the USA and reference a previous exhibition at the Jonathan Smart Gallery in 2009 (based on The Periodic Table). These drawings in turn have been translated to wall paintings and made to move within an animation by Jill Kennedy, thus entering the 4th dimension: time. The notion of stored yet re-wired knowledge has led on to Encyclo Dimensional, the ‘first draft’ for a book of drawings. The intention is re-create the Golden Book of encyclopedias as edited and written by Bertha Morris Parker (1959-69). My ‘version’ is positioned from a parallel and heavily slanted perspective. Satire and deadpan humor abound in both the writing and the drawings themselves, though many reveal underlying truths and universal philosophies."